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PsxMeUP writes "Game Observer conducted an interview with Ashley Cheng, Production Director at Bethesda. He answered questions about the Gamebryo engine, why they prefer it over other engines and the advantages it presented while making Fallout 3. Cheng also talks a bit about what inspired their designers while making Fallout 3 and what is in store for the PS3. Apparently, much of the team has read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which inspired the look and story of Fallout 3. Bethesda, according to Cheng, will never create a game like Final Fantasy because the Gamebryo engine is better at handling 'open ended worlds ripe for exploration.'"
Meanwhile, Bethesda's Jeff Gardiner spoke recently about the game's fifth and final DLC release, Mothership Zeta, which finds players aboard an alien spaceship in orbit. He said, "The player will have a handful of tasty alien technologies to play with. There are new fire arms and melee weapons, which will comprise the most powerful weaponry in the game."

The problem with fallout 3 is that it was so close to being a FPS, but wasn't. I want to play it like a FPS but its just too inferior. I keep thinking to myself how awesome the game would have been if it was built on an FPS engine like the one used in Call of Duty 5

I had 450+ hours into the game playing different characters *before* the DLCs came out . Now I have over 600 hours and each character brought new adventures not only because of a different skill set, but because of places in the game that I missed before or scenarios that played out differently.

I keep thinking to myself how awesome the game would have been if it was built on an FPS engine like the one used in Call of Duty 5

So why not just play Call of Duty 5 and leave us Fallout fans our Fallout experience? Seriously, there are any number of "me too" FPS games out there to satisfy the mouse-twitchers and "gaming keyboard" masses; Fallout, on the other hand, is something unique and special in the history of computer gaming. The point of Fallout is to become immersed in the rich game world of post-apocalyptic alternate earth and enjoy the ironic gallows humor of the optimistic retro-future (epitomized in the sci-fi serials of the 1950s), in ruins by the time of the Fallout games, contrasted with the bitter realities of survival in a bombed out wasteland. If the game were to depend too heavily on FPS type skills then it would detract from the immersive RPG experience whereby the player "becomes" the character in the game world. Fallout is an RPG; if that is not what you are looking for then play something else and leave us RPG gamers our own niche. I almost wish that Fallout 3 had NOT been released on console so that the true Fallout fans would be spared the indignity of hearing the complaints of the unwashed console FPS masses who play War Game 200X and Madden Football 200X and then complain when they don't "get" Fallout and ask why it couldn't be more like any of the other forgettable console games which come and go each year.

I'm not sure if the engine referenced is responsible for rendering graphics. I am a HUGE Bethesda fanboy... I'll admit it. I LOVE Oblivion and all of it's DLC as well as Morrowind and Fallout 3. However, those plastic looking expressionless faces are sub par for such fantastic games. I realize that this is a difficult thing to accomplish with current technology and that most games suffer from this to some extent. The other thing that bugs me about the engine is that the women are very manly looking. If I were Bethesda, my big focus for my next engine iteration would be on having the character models show at least a little bit of emotion and make the women look like women.

The game mechanics portions of their engines are wonderful and their talent at creating atmosphere in a game is spot on. That has got to be quite an achievement in games where people play for sixty to over a hundred hours. Their games never feel terribly repetitive to me. I stay engaged pretty much the whole time.